aderyn

1) They don't work as well as a regular upright. They can't suck up dust. It's basically just a crude sweep.
2) They are not as reliable as an upright. My 560 broke after a year - the brushes won't spin any more. Yes, I tried Googling the issue to death. No avail. Meanwhile, my Dyson lasted 7 years before I sold it in a moving sale.
3) They are only worth cleaning before you leave the house for a while because they clean so slowly.
4) They take up just as much, if not more, floorspace than an upright.
5) The cleaning mechanism sucks, it always spits dust back out into the air so is bad for allergy users. If you look at the filters, they look terrible. Meanwhile, the Dyson HEPA filter looks new even after 7 years.
6) If I wanted to clean the room immediately, but am not leaving the house, turning this thing on and waiting for it to clean the living room will take 30 minutes, while I can grab an upright, vacuum the room, and put away the upright all in under 5 min. While the Roomba is cleaning, you have to make sure that you, your pets, and your kids have to get out of its way constantly.

Get an upright. Get a Dyson. Move a little bit and stave off those extra pounds on your love handles.

You're missing the point. It isn't that Roomba will do it faster or better; it's that Roomba will do it while you do something else.

molex

I have no dog in this race, having never owned a roomba, but when Roombas and Neatos come up on woot (which seems to be about every 5 or 6 minutes lately) virtually every single person who's owned both says "Neato is way better".

I do own a Neato and unfortunately I didn't have a good start, they had to replace my unit twice before I got one that seems to be working correctly. The first unit died, the second unit couldn't find the base station under any circumstances, finally the third unit seems to be working well.

As long as it works Neato is indeed awesome, personally I still wouldn't buy the Roomba, I'd wait for another Neato to come up. Should be in about 3 minutes now.

cemetary11

This is 549.00 on roomba website. the model 630 and others have the aerovac technology. This vastly reduces the cleaning of brushes etc. the aereovac filter can be purchased on roomba website.
I have this machine and love it. have two persians. CHECK out color of filter

cemetary11

Forgot to mention that aerovac filter and bin are $34.99 on roomba website. Based on their price of $549 this is well worth it. I have had two 330 models and one dirt dog and if i had gotten the upgrade bin they would still be with us.

RogerDucky

One thing that need to be noted is that all robotic vacuums are "maintenance" vacuums -- you'll need to vacuum with your normal vacuum eventually, if not the room, then the robot itself. It does mean you'll be breaking the vacuum out a lot less often, but still something to keep in mind.

Pros:
1. They are great at maintaining rooms -- they can go under furniture and does a through job using a "drunkard's walk" (semi-random) algorithm to ensure it goes over 100% of the room at least once.
2. They don't need to be pushed -- therefore, it's easier on the back overall.
3. Side brush will actually clean the edges of the walls -- this actually makes it more obvious when you haven't vacuumed the baseboard in a while, as there will be a strip of "clean" where the Roomba went over it with the side brush.

Cons:
1. As some others have said, cleaning, while only taking 5-10 minutes after getting used to it, has to be done after every run.
2. The Roomba can only do at most 3 rooms at once -- and scheduling will only work well once you've figured out the best placement for the charging base.
3. Roombas are "blind" (well, it has a few infrared wall-following sensors, but it can't "see") -- thus, it has to bump into things before it knows something is there for the most part. So, planters with wire legs need not apply, as they get bashed into by the Roomba a lot, with the potential for the Roomba to knock them over.

loloudoudara

downing9790 wrote:Had one of these, not the same model, but a Roomba and bought the Neato instead. 100% better, as it has an actual vacuum in it and better cleaning and less maintenance and it hasn't broken like the Roomba. I repaired the Roomba and gave it to my daughter, but Oh Well.
The Neato will stop go to the charging station and then resume where it left off cleaning and then finish the job. I have it scheduled to clean at 8:45 twice a week and it works great.
Neato Rules!

Same experience here, I have a cat, a dog, a colombian girlfriend with super long hair, and my fro, and with my new neato, no more hair under my sucks anymore! Simply awesome. I have it scheduled to run once a day at 8:30am

bayjacob

1) They don't work as well as a regular upright. They can't suck up dust. It's basically just a crude sweep.
2) They are not as reliable as an upright. My 560 broke after a year - the brushes won't spin any more. Yes, I tried Googling the issue to death. No avail. Meanwhile, my Dyson lasted 7 years before I sold it in a moving sale.
3) They are only worth cleaning before you leave the house for a while because they clean so slowly.
4) They take up just as much, if not more, floorspace than an upright.
5) The cleaning mechanism sucks, it always spits dust back out into the air so is bad for allergy users. If you look at the filters, they look terrible. Meanwhile, the Dyson HEPA filter looks new even after 7 years.
6) If I wanted to clean the room immediately, but am not leaving the house, turning this thing on and waiting for it to clean the living room will take 30 minutes, while I can grab an upright, vacuum the room, and put away the upright all in under 5 min. While the Roomba is cleaning, you have to make sure that you, your pets, and your kids have to get out of its way constantly.

Get an upright. Get a Dyson. Move a little bit and stave off those extra pounds on your love handles.

trulypink

I hate hand vacuuming and have saved hours of my life on that chore by using Roombas for the last five years. They may not have as much suction as hand vacs, but my floors are cleaner because I use it more often than hand vacuuming and it goes under the bed and furniture. The earlier models weren't as reliable, but iRobot replaced two parts for me for free over the years. Cleaning the dustbin and brushes takes about 3 minutes and creates a smaller dust cloud than a full-size bagless vac.

Redneck09

Leptailurus

Every time a Roomba comes up it seems a lot of people come out to complain. Not me! Me and the spouse and three cats quite appreciate the little robot.

First, I don't know how ANYONE can say "it only takes me 5 minutes to vacuum with an upright" because if I want to suck up all the little bits off the floor it takes me 15-20 minutes. I don't like to miss spots.

Second, upright vacuums scare the crap out of my cats. Okay, might sound crazy cat lady of me, but I don't like subjecting them to the upright EVERY day. Roomba picks up the cat hair and dirt just fine and my cats don't make a dive for behind the couch every time it runs. And they seem to love to roll around on the freshly Roomba'd carpet so I'd call that a feline stamp of approval.

RogerDucky

katiushka wrote:Any one knows how this compares to the Neato? i have one of the pet and allergy ones and it does do a good job and picks up lots of dust!!! I really love it!

Pickup-wise, Neato and the most recent Roombas are about the same -- however, Neato is better at navagation overall, since it can see everything and map out a route for itself based on that. Neato vacuums also have the advantage of being less maintenance, due to the beater brush being less likely to have hair tangled around it. (It happens, but it takes longer for Neato to get hair wrapped up.)

Only thing Roomba has over the Neato is the side brush, which brushes along the wall and "dusts" the bottom half of the baseboards. Since that's patented by Roomba, it's not something Neato can add to their robots. So, yeah, stick with the Neato.

kd1357

Edit* - forgot to add - if you have black carpets, roomba wont work over them (they have this weird edge detection sensor that gets fooled by the color black and thinks it is staring over the edge of a deep precipice of sorts) - i was able to find fix online by taping the sensor but still yet another glitch that I didnt know before purchasing it.

I just thought I should say that I actually have black rugs in my bathroom that my Roomba has absolutely no problem cleaning. I've had mine since August and I'm extremely happy with it. I just clean it after every run, which if you have a can of compressed air and a seam ripper, takes about 5 minutes. So I'd say having clean floors in my apartment is worth 5 minutes of my time.

Oh, and the only time I ever came home to find it stuck someplace other than at its charging base was when it shut my bathroom door on itself, so it literally died trying to get out.

imadonut

RWoodward wrote:This is not a serious cleaning tool. It is at best a toy for geeks, a stopgap measure for the excessively busy, or a substitute for cleaning for the extremely lazy.

Said as someone who meets all three of those criteria.

Who wants to know a serious cleaning tool?
Roomba is my butler, my maid. I can set Jeeves loose every day, and he may have fun
spinning around, and not be serious, but he does his job. Who the heck wants to lug out a
vacuum when it can be done automatically?
There is always plenty of dust and sand and
dog hair picked up. And if you have hair, dental floss, fishing line, or whatever wrapped
around the brush, just cut it and pull it out. No need to disssemble the Roomba, you drama queens. This is instilling much more passion than the debates. 4 more years for my Roomba.
donut

ThunderThighs

wilbercd77 wrote:Hi you guys, did your Roomba get shipped already? I still have the ' sit tight bud' message when I look for it at the 'stuff you bought'

Cheers

While often faster, allow up to 5 business days for orders to process and ship out. Today is the 5th business do so if it hasn't already shipped, it should soon. Also, a lot of shippers don't update status over the weekend so it could update today.

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